I hope you get to spend more time with your family when you implement these time-saving cleaning hacks.
Time-saving hacks give me more time with my family. I am always looking for ways to make the most of my time, spend more time with my family, and have a clean house!
If you’re in the same boat, I hope that these hacks encourage and inspire you.
This post contains affiliate links. That means when you click on a link and make a purchase, I make a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Affiliate, I make an income from qualifying purchases. For more information about my disclosure and privacy policy, visit this page.
My Best Cleaning Tips
I have written about how the best homemade laundry recipes compare or how to schedule a homemaking routine. But I don’t think I’ve compiled all my best cleaning tips in a single blog post!
The household duties we juggle as homemakers can be many. So when I stumble upon time-saving tips, I will always take a peek at them! I also love to pass them on. Anything to give homemakers more time to spend with their families.
Some of these cleaning tips will benefit you in different seasons of life. So I hope that you take a look, take what you can use now, and come back to see what I add to the list!
Pin this post for later!
1. Prioritize What Matters
There are three things I have to do every day to keep the mess at bay – run the dishwasher, do a load of laundry (wash, dry, and put it away), and check on the waste baskets. For my home, when those three things are done every single day, my home just feels cleaner.
As a homemaker, keeping my sanity matters a lot to me. It’s easy to lose myself in the comparison game of social media. But how I manage my home is not how you manage yours. When I figure out what works for my family and me and prioritize those things, I know that my home will run so much more smoothly.
This hack also works in harder seasons. When I’m sick or postpartum, I know that if my husband or a friend asks, “What can I do to help?” I’m going to say, “Can you do a load of laundry?”
2. Make Cleaning a Daily Routine
Once I tackle what has to get done, I focus on other rhythms to keep my house clean.
Thinking about these was easier said than done. So if you struggle to make it a habit, just know that you aren’t alone!
After every meal, I reset the dining room. That way, it’s ready for the next meal. That means all dishes go in the sink, the table gets wiped down, and I sweep if I need to. Now, I know what you’re thinking – you sweep three times a day?
And some days, I do! Now that my children are older, I don’t have to. But when I had toddlers who were feeding themselves, I absolutely had to.
Either way, those 5 minutes I spend doing a quick tidy so the table is ready for my family at every meal have been a game-changer.
3. Don’t Touch Something More than Once
This sounds ridiculous, but when you understand it, it is very helpful.
I don’t remember where I heard this, but the principle is you take a mental note of every time you have to touch something until you put it where it needs to go. It’s to train you to put something where it belongs from the beginning.
My favorite way to play this “game” was with laundry. Count how many times you move your laundry from your bed to that one chair in your room (you know the one that I’m talking about). If that doesn’t convince you to put your laundry away on the first try, I don’t know what will.
4. Keep Cleaning Supplies Easily Accessible
I’m not saying keep your cleaning supplies in one place. I said easily accessible.
My master bathroom used to be one of the dirtiest places in the house. That was until I created a cleaning caddy specifically for the master bathroom. And it doesn’t leave. Now, when I have a few minutes every week, I do a quick clean.
I don’t know why that one simple change made such a big difference. You can adapt that by keeping a small cleaning caddy under every sink in your home. It may feel ridiculous to have two or three cleaning caddies, but I promise – it’s a great hack!
I also keep my broom and a spray mop in my kitchen. I use the broom multiple times a day, so it just made sense that it lives in my kitchen. It didn’t make any sense to walk it back to the hall closet on the other side of the house every time I used it (our home doesn’t have a pantry, so I can hide my broom in it).
5. Focus on High-Traffic Areas First
Have you ever heard of the saying, “outer order, inner calm”? That’s where this principle applies.
Clean the high-traffic areas in your home before you focus on deep-cleaning projects, and it will give you a dopamine boost. Quick wins will propel you forward!
More Homemaking Hacks, Delivered Straight to You
If you’re interested to see how I use what I write about in my own life, sign up for my newsletter! For even more homemaking inspiration, follow me on Pinterest.
6. Give Cleaning Tasks to Family Members
A clean home doesn’t have to fall squarely on your shoulders! Especially if you have children.
Two, three, and four-year-olds are capable of cleaning up after themselves. Four, five, and six-year-olds can sort and hang laundry or empty the dishwasher.
Find tasks you can delegate to other members of your home. Ask your husband for help. Cleaning isn’t a one-woman job.
7. Use Products You Love (That Actually Work!)
Products get sold because the marketing is good. But if it isn’t working for you, move on to something else! Ask other homemakers in your circle what works best for them and try those products. Or, you could make them yourself!
Don’t be afraid to mix things up to get the job done (better).
Here are a few products I use all the time in my own home:
– This Bissell-brand steam mop is a game changer! As a mom to kids who love the outdoors and own multiple animals, I love products that will clean and sanitize. This has been a staple in my cleaning routine for years! I also love that I can safely mop around my children and pets.
– I was so impressed by this pet spray that I used it when my potty-training toddlers had accidents! It tackles stains and smells. It’s incredible!
8. Clean Appliances Quarterly
I spend very little time doting on my appliances. I will give them a wipe down and make sure the smudges and any stray food (hello, toddlers) get removed. But I deep-clean my appliances probably once a quarter.
In fact, this would be a great task to hire out to professional cleaning services!
Like anything, there are exceptions to the rule. If something overflows in the oven, the oven gets a deep clean. If I wash towels specific to our dogs, I immediately run a clean cycle on the washing machine.
9. Tackle Different Rooms Daily
I created a cleaning schedule to make sure that every room in my home gets the attention it needs every week. And it was a game-changer in my homemaking journey!
I no longer mindlessly wander through my home every day picking up the odds and ends. I choose one room every day and focus on it. That means when I work on my master bedroom, I also clean the sheets, open the windows, sweep, and mop. But that’s my only focus for the day.
Sure, I wipe down the kitchen counters and make sure I run the dishwasher. But I’m not focusing on any other area of my home.
The same goes for the bathrooms and the other bedrooms in my home. When I clean the bathrooms, I also wash the towels. But cleaning the bathrooms means sweeping, mopping, cleaning off the mirrors, deep cleaning the toothbrush holders, and anything else that needs to get done.
Because all my focus is on one room, I know that I’m thorough. And because I know each room gets attention every week, I can focus on a quick tidy throughout the week instead of a deep clean randomly.
Now that I have that system in place, the longest part of my day is waiting for the laundry to get done!
Related Post: Sample Weekly Homemaking Routine
10. Tackle Laundry Daily
If you do one load of laundry every day, that is a great way to stay on top of it. And if you’re busy parents like we are, you may find yourself checking in on your laundry throughout the day.
In the morning, I start a load of laundry. Mid-morning or lunch time, I transfer it to the dryer. And come bedtime, I am folding it and putting it away.
There are plenty of times when I am putting away the dry laundry the next day. So don’t think that this is a perfect system! But it is effective.
11. If It Takes Less Than 5 Minutes, Clean It Now
This is a controversial piece of homemaking advice, but I feel like it has its place in certain seasons of life.
The idea is that if you stumble upon something that takes such a small amount of time to complete, don’t put it off. Complete that task now. Think of things like sorting the mail, wiping down the counters, reorganizing the shoe rack, etc.
As I said, I think it can be effective in certain seasons of life. It’s also a helpful mantra to keep clutter at bay. Don’t delay – deal with the clutter now!
12. Habit Stack Your Cleaning Routine
I have heard some homemakers will watch a show while they fold their laundry. What a great hack!
13. Schedule a Day of Rest
You might be thinking this is counterintuitive, but it’s not.
If you don’t actively seek rest, you will not want to continue in your homemaking career. It’s that simple.
It takes a substantial amount of mental energy just to keep the plates spinning – paying the bills, maintaining the home, cooking meals, staying on top of the laundry. If you aren’t taking a break from all of that to have some fun or simply stay at home and do nothing, you will experience burnout, overwhelm, and anxiety.
Pin this post for later!
14. Set a Daily Timer…
…and walk away when the timer is off.
This could look like a dedicated 20 minutes every afternoon to simply clean what you see. Or you could focus on one room in your home each day.
When you do this consistently, I think you will find that maintaining your home doesn’t take as much time as we think it does. And with that confidence, you can be encouraged to tackle the rest of your home.
The key to this trick, though, is walking away when the timer is finished. Maybe you turn this into a family event. And when the timer is done, you play a game.
The point is to focus on cleaning, and then focus on having fun and enjoying your clean home.
15. Utilize Baskets
This is a great tool for multilevel homes.
Keep a basket or laundry hamper in an area of your home and throw items from other rooms into that basket. At some point during the day, empty the basket.
When children’s socks wind up in the living room instead of in their hampers, they go in the basket. When a receipt or pen winds up in the laundry room, it goes in a basket to be returned to the junk drawer.
16. Use Cleaning Wipes or Paper Towels
If the thought of using microfiber cloths or rags overwhelms you because you know you’re adding to your laundry routine, don’t use them! Start with disposable wipes and move to washable rags when you have a handle on things.
17. Use Multi-Purpose Cleaners
Cut costs and brain power. Use the same cleaner for multiple surfaces.
18. Clean From Top to Bottom
Our bedrooms all have ceiling fans. And when I dust those ceiling fans, I’m disrupting the dust and letting it fall onto bedding and the floor.
What’s truly a pain is if I’ve already changed the sheets and vacuumed the floors. You can save yourself a headache if you clean your rooms from top to bottom.
Take the kitchen as another example. If you’re starting at the counter level, declutter and clean the countertops. Let any stray crumbs fall to the floor. Move to the table, and then chairs.
Finally, you can sweep and mop your kitchen floors. Then you will know every surface was cleaned, but there are no stray crumbs. Whatever was pushed to the floor was, in fact, swept up and thrown away.
19. Do a Quick Tidy at the End of the Day
Waking up to a tidy home is more motivating than we give it credit for.
When we begin the day with a clean slate, we can propel that momentum forward and conquer the rest of the day. However, that begins the night before.
20. Perform Your Cleaning Routine Before You Leave the House
If you work outside the home, this might make more sense if you are a stay-at-home mom like I am. But either way, hear me out.
When I run errands for the day, I feel like the day gets away from me. When I return home, I go right into lunch time, nap time, activities with my kids – you get the idea.
When I make it a priority to clean my house before I leave to run errands, I know that no matter how the day turns out, my home will get the attention it needs.
21. Create a To-Do List (And Stick To It!)
Mom brain is a real thing. And to combat that, I keep a rolling to do list in my planner. Usually, I keep certain tasks assigned to certain days. It helps me combat overwhelm and make sure I’m not going to forget anything!
What Tips Would You Add?
I love hearing from you! If you have any time-saving tips, comment on this blog post and let me know what they are!
You can see more of my homemaking hacks over on Pinterest.
Pin this post for later!
Leave a Reply